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If you used the new iPhone Upgrade Program to get your iPhone 6s, you will probably be wondering how to swap it for the new iPhone 7 when it comes out next month.

Since this is the very first year that the Upgrade Program has been active, I was wondering the same thing, so I went online to get some answers from the always helpful Apple Store Specialists.

Here is the full transcript:

Tuesday, Aug 30, 2016 06:48 PM
Duration: 9 minutes 51 seconds

Apple: Welcome to Apple.What can we do for you today?
Ivan:
Hi, I wanted to know how will the iPhone Upgrade Program work when a new iPhone is released. How will I be able to exchange my iPhone for a new one?Apple: Please wait while I connect you with an Apple Specialist.Kaitlyn: Welcome to the Apple Online Store! My name is Kaitlyn! I can absolutely help with your iPhone Upgrade Program questions.Are you currently on the iPhone Upgrade Program?Continue reading →

Last Saturday I found out about AlphaGo, Google DeepMind’s computer capable of beating the European champion at the game Go; it uses “deep neural networks that have been trained by supervised learning, from human expert games, and by reinforcement learning from games of self-play“, and it’s still unknown if humans can beat it.

Watching the project’s website I noticed the copyright at the bottom and thought: is DeepMind actually aligned with Google’s business goals? A quick look to their mission statement refreshed my memory:

Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

You might think that this case is an easy one, that Apple wants to protect its customers’ privacy and the government doesn’t, that Apple is right and the FBI is not. Well, it’s not that simple.

First, let me provide a little bit of context:

On December 2, 2015, Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tafsheen Malik shot and killed 14 people and injured 22 others at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California.

The FBI recovered an iPhone 5c, issued by Farook’s employer, which “may contain critical communications and data prior to and around the time of the shooting“.

The FBI obtained a warrant to search the iPhone, and the owner of the iPhone gave the FBI its consent.

The iPhone is locked and the FBI asked Apple to help execute the search warrant.

Apple refused on a very long letter written by CEO Tim Cook (full text here). Here’s a little extract:

Specifically, the FBI wants us to make a new version of the iPhone operating system, circumventing several important security features, and install it on an iPhone recovered during the investigation. In the wrong hands, this software — which does not exist today — would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone’s physical possession.

The FBI may use different words to describe this tool, but make no mistake: Building a version of iOS that bypasses security in this way would undeniably create a backdoor. And while the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, there is no way to guarantee such control.

After reading that letter, I concluded that Apple was right, but after a discussion with a good friend, I realized that my conclusion was too simplistic.

You have probably heard about the announcements that Apple made on Wednesday around the Apple TV, iPhone 6S, iPad Pro… and the Apple Pencil.

As usual, there are a lot of memes and jokes about the keynote, specially around the iPad Pro and the Apple Pencil; for example, a comic is making the rounds on Twitter highlighting the new iPad’s similarities with Microsoft’s Surface; and then there is this:

Putting aside whether or not the Apple Pencil is revolutionary, is it fair to bring back that image from 2007? I don’t think so. Steve Jobs’ words were uttered in a very different context, when people were used to interact with their incipient smartphones with a stylus (or with their nails).

We live in a society where technology allows consumers to access creative content easier and faster than ever, so I wanted to better understand how some of these decisions (like Amazon’s new pay-per-page policy) affect the industry at its core. Below, you can read an interview with Mary C. Moore, author and literary agent.

Well, this is speculation and opinions on this strategy vary wildly across the board. As the way it stands now, the largest impact is going to be on the self-publishing authors who publish exclusively through Amazon. Beyond that, the effects will probably be felt on writing trends. A pay-per-page system skews in favor of high-paced, tension-filled, cliff-hanging writing that makes the reader continue to turn the page rather than some of the more subtle and nuanced books that perhaps favor lovely writing, or a surreal storyline, or something more abstract.

After one week wearing the Apple Watch, I can reaffirm my comments on why I believe it will be a success. It may not be the first smartwatch to reach the market, nor the most complete in terms of features, but one thing is clear: Apple has done what it does best, create a simple but delightful experience with a product category that other competitors have already tried mastering.

I had read tons of articles and reviews before getting an Apple Watch of my own, and yet this first week I discovered a few things, good and bad, that surprised me. These are the top 3:

Now, I know that doesn’t mean every iPhone user will get an Apple Watch, especially since smartwatches sales are having a rough start (only 720,000 Android Wear smartwatches were shipped in 2014). There are, however, 2 points that I believe will make a difference in Apple’s case.

Three years ago, I switched from an iPhone 3Gs with iOS 4.2 to a Samsung Focus with Windows Phone 7 and I wrote a series of posts about the changes (here’s the translation, powered by Bing: part I, IIand III).

Things have changed a lot since 2010: Android has surpassed iOS and is now the market-share king, Google bought Motorola, Blackberry has “disappeared”, Windows Phone has evolved quite a bit and Microsoft is in the middle of the process of buying Nokia’s devices & services business.